Dreams, drawings and psychoanalytic fun

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Monthly Archives: April 2017

Back living at my parents’ house, it would seem. I realised they were on to me about my secret, sexual shenanigans and were furious; I had about half an hour to frantically delete files and online accounts before they ransacked my computer for evidence.

I think we’re harking back over ten years with this one. The chances of either of my parents demanding access to my computer to see what I get up to in the hay are, thankfully, nil.

Not that I’m saying there’d be a huge amount for them to find. It’s just, you know.

But I did have a boyfriend who used to check up on me online and log in to my email account to see if I was setting up dates with other dudes. The thing I really find staggering is how long he’d been doing it before I realised. The intimidation tactics that my dream-parents used, and their fury, are what I knew from him.

When I finally split up with that boyfriend (for good), the Wimbledon finals were on. So the next day I watched the entire gentlemen’s match (Federer being put through his paces by Nadal) from the sofa with a bottle of champagne. For a good several years later, I felt a little moment of triumph whenever I realised it was Wimbledon-time again. I think last year was the first time it almost passed me by; we don’t watch live TV in my household and I just happened to swing by a pub that was showing the BBC coverage. Come June, it will have been a decade.

In my studies of the subconscious, I’ve noticed how surprisingly it creates links between one thing and another. When I told my friend A about the third episode in beds, boots and bad debts – when I recieved a threatening demand for loan repayment, postmarked 2007 – I said I couldn’t think why that year, in particular, came up. She pointed out that a full ten years had passed since then and suggested that my subconscious was carrying out a review of what had changed.

bad debts and ok computer feel similar to me; they both show my privacy being invaded, and the threat of (some form of) harm being done to me by others, which I have supposedly incurred on myself. In my dreamscape, images of going back to university, settling debts, ending and beginning relationships, and trying for self-fulfillment without incurring criticism or punishment, are clinging to one another as climbing plants reach out tendrils to bind themselves together. With all these interlinking tendrils, how do we bring a story full-circle?

I was writing the screenplay for my first short film, which would feature two to four original songs, played by the protagonist’s band. I’d written some lyrics and was sketching out a tune when I realised that my songwriting is basically deeply embarrassing and that given how many actual musicans I know, there wasn’t really an excuse. I asked my ex, two of my housemates and (I think) a friend of a friend whose band we might see support My Vitriol in a couple of weeks, if they had any songs I could use, or could write me one. The riff from a song that my ex wrote years ago stayed in my head as the dream ended.

Same night. My art teacher hauled me up to talk about my paintings – she was annoyed that I wasn’t applying myself seriously enough, producing consistent work or looking after the pieces I had produced. She pointed out that one drawing, on a large sheet of cartridge paper, was torn. (There is some reality behind this. In sixth form, I’d roll up large pieces of paper on which I had my pastel drawings, and tuck them under my arm to carry them round the school grounds. My teacher was scandalised.)

She brought my attention to a number of box canvases, stacked up against one another, which had been painted over the last couple of years. “You see, these are beautiful,” she said. “But then you’ve got these, which just aren’t the same standard, are they?”

I was pretty impressed myself by the first few. Did I do those? I’m better than I remembered. I looked closer. There was another student’s signature on them. When I looked at the gauche watercolours I’d really produced, I could see that I hadn’t improved since I was sixteen.

Same night, small consolation. I was watching old recordings of our bollywood shows in years gone by, to see that much better dancers than me make mistakes, too.

Running a bath, but first I had to encourage the snakes to go down the plug hole. There were around four to six of them, all orange or red and a little narrower than my thumb. After my bath, I gave my hair an extra rinse in the sink, and noticed the water running a mossy brown colour. While I was rinsing, the doorbell rang and I felt mildly guilty for letting my housemates get it, when I knew it was likely to be a delivery for me.

Then, realising that I was up, bathed and dressed all ready for work at such an early hour, I felt pretty damn impressed at myself. Unfortunately, this is a ruse my subconscious often plays, to horrify me all the more when I wake up and find I’m still in bed.

Later, I was going through a large book that Sibling had had since childhood, to try and identify the snakes. We also looked at illustrations of birds; he asked me to estimate, from the drawings, whether the wing span of one was bigger than my hand and I said no without really looking, then regretted my answer. Sibling turned his attention to his favourite section of the book, on vampires, and asked, “what did you say the vampire you dreamt about was called?”

“Damn, I can’t remember,” I said, “I’ll have to look back through my blog,” but although I could remember the vampire dream, there was no record, on the blog or any of the bits of paper I have lying around, of his name. *

Some time last week, I dreamt I had a bald patch gaping at the crown of my head. Two nights ago, I was walking around in a shortish skirt with my legs making no attempt to look shaven. (On the subject of legs, in the same night I also dreamt that I couldn’t kick as high as some of my dance comrades, which indeed I can’t.)

My hair dreams had settled down recently, but about a year ago I had a rash of them – I saw myself losing hair from my head and eyebrows, while growing a winter coat across legs, chin, breasts, belly. Oh, and there was that time when I had a long soak in the bath at my (then new) shared house, then left the bathroom not realising I’d left a light but even covering of pubic hair in the tub….

Do you sometimes get that thing where the content of the dream is sketchy, but the feeling of it perfectly memorable? This one was definitely about sexual rejection, possibly with me cooked an extensive feast that no-one wanted.

The Metro ran a story in which a fan claimed to have seen Michael Gambon at a small-town Odeon, taking in a Harry Potter showing on his own. “IT WAS REALLY HIM!” insisted the headline. The informant used an unusual kind of logic, describing the internal pillars and period decor (peach and beige stripes) of this particular post-war Odeon, as if by demonstrating that he had been to this cinema, he could prove that Michael Gambon was also there.

I’m disappointed to say that my dream-self was convinced for a little while, before discussing it (still in dream) with Sibling, whose scientific background was having none of it.